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e. Mobile Lounge Terminals. The mobile lounge or passenger transporter concept is in use at Dulles International Airport. It is sometimes called the remote aircraft parking concept. Aircaft parking aprons are remote from the terminal building. The mobile lounges transport passengers from the building to aircraft and can be used as hold rooms at terminal building gate positions. In this concept, the aircraft gate positions are placed in parallel rows at required spacings with mobile lounge and service vehicle roads running between the parallel rows of aircraft. Several sets of parallel aircraft parking rows can be provided for ultimate development of gate positions. Airline operations buildings must be provided adjacent to aircraft parking aprons. With the mobile lounge concept, walking distances are held to a minimum since the compact terminal building contains common passenger processing fa- cilities and curb frontage can be located directly across the terminal building from mobile lounge gates. Building and curb Iength, which is established in part by the number of mobile lounge gates, must be carefully planned to provide adequate frontage for enplaning and deplaning passengers. The concept has good expansion capability in that capacity can be increased by the addition of mobile lounges and the main terminal and aprons can be expanded without the addition of extensive concourses, fingers, or satellites. With the mobile lounge concept, additions can be made with little impedance to airport operations and aircraft movements. Aircraft maneuvering capability is excellent with this concept. Remote aircraft parking can reduce taxi time and distance to runways and avoid aircraft con- gestion next to terminal building facilities. This also removes the aircraft noise and jet blast problem from the building area. Mobile lounges must be capable of mating with various aircraft sill heights and ter- minal building floor heights. In comparing the mobile lounge concept with other concepts, the cost of independent terminal and service buildings and the purchase, operation, and maintenance of mobile lounges must be considered. The time required to move passengers between ter- minal and aircraft by mobile lounge should also be taken into account. f. Unit Terminals. With the unit terminal concept described herein, the airlines build individual terminals around a system of interconnecting access and service roads. The terminals are spaced some distance apart and each terminal provides complete passenger processing and aircraft parking facilities. Airlines which provide limited service to an airport will sometimes combine their operations in a single unit terminal. The concept permits each airline to build a terminal to its own liking and provides for maximum airline identification. Kennedy Interna- tional Airport is the best known example of the unit terminal concept. Walking is held to comfortable distances since unit terminals are much smaller than large joint -use terminals. For this same reason, adequate curb frontage can be easily designed into the unit terminal. Expansion capability with the unit terminal con- cept can be difficult because of the gross area required for each individual terminal. Unit terminals probably require the greatest acreage for development and ex- pansion of any of the terminal area concepts. Con- struction costs are high because passenger processing facilities, aircraft parking aprons, and public parking must be repeated with each unit terminal. Aircraft maneuvering capability within the vi- cinity of unit terminals is usually good since the air- lines have the opportunity to design aircraft aprons and passenger loading devices to suit their own oper- ating requirements. However, the concept requires extensive taxiway systems which lead to complex taxi operations. With the unit terminal concept the rela- tionship between adjacent terminals must be carefully planned if interference between aircraft flows is to be avoided and the capability of expanding individual terminals is to be preserved. 55